Growing senior clout may influence German election

Published: 08 Sep 2009 21:16:10 PST

* German politicians scramble to woo senior voters

* A third of German electorate over 60 years old

* Seniors helped tip balance of 2002 election

GOERLITZ, Germany, Sept 8 - Forget labour unions, the car lobby, and never mind the farmers association.

When it comes to political clout in Germany, it is the bloc of senior citizens that elected leaders worry about pleasing most, a special interest group with unrivalled influence that no candidate in their right mind would dare to antagonise.

Not only are the retirees the fastest-growing voter group in a country with a rapidly ageing population, but German seniors -- who survived a world war, a Cold War and a dictator or two -- vote more reliably in big numbers than any other age group.

"Pensioners have become a decisive force in elections," said Dietmar Herz, political scientist at Erfurt University. "In our ageing society their influence keeps expanding. They're a bloc that always votes. No party can afford to annoy them."

Juergen Falter, a Mainz University political scientist, added: "They get a disproportionate share of attention."

Just in time for the Sept. 27 election, pensioners were treated in July to an unexpectedly generous 2.4 percent rise in retirement benefits even though the inflation rate is near zero.

A further pre-election gift from Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition undermined years of reform efforts in one fell swoop: new legislation outlawing pension cuts. Forever. Pensions will keep rising each year even if workers' wages fall.

Both Merkel's conservatives and her rival Frank-Walter Steinmeier's Social Democrats have been tripping over each other to try to keep the senior voters in their column.

More than one third of Germany's 62 million voters are 60 or older and that percentage is projected to hit 50 percent by 2025. The 20 million 60+ voters will again top the voter turnout charts as they did in 2005, when 85 percent of them voted.

"If other groups don't use their right to vote you can't blame the seniors for that," said Goerlitz Mayor Joachim Paulick in an interview with Reuters in this haven for senior citizens on the German-Polish border 300 km south of Berlin.

"The seniors have gone through so much in their lives and anyone who's endured a war and a post-war division like they have has an intense interest in exercising their right to vote."

Goerlitz, a lovingly restored gem dating from the Middle Ages, is the only German city to survive World War Two unscathed.

GOERLITZ GROWS THANKS TO RETIREES

Both Merkel and Steinmeier have devoted much of their campaign efforts to placating and pleasing the elderly.

The conservatives often won the lion's share of senior votes but the SPD siphoned off a decisive share in the 2002 election when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder campaigned against the Iraq war -- a key issue for a generation that survived World War Two.

"The CDU doesn't have the lock on the seniors they used to," said Herz. "The SPD has worked hard to make in-roads."

Reiner Klingholz, director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, said the two reasons German seniors are growing in size and clout are: a prolonged low birth rate since the early 1970s and growing life expectancies.

"Germany is the world's first country to have such a long period of deaths exceeding births, since 1972," Klingholz said. "Germany is ageing faster than other countries because of its enormous drop in births. The older generations are growing and the younger age groups shrinking. Germany used to have 1.4 million newborns per year in the 1960s. Now it's below 700,000."

Klingholz said the senior clout leads to political decisions unfair to younger generations -- like the July pension increase.

"They're all afraid of upsetting pensioners," he said.

To combat the depopulation plaguing the east since the Iron Curtain fell, Goerlitz has worked hard to restore its mystique as a retiree paradise. It was once known as "Pension-opolis".

Many pensioners, including 2,000 from west Germany attracted by its charming Old Quarter, have resettled in Goerlitz. The low cost of living has lured many seniors on fixed incomes. "Life is very good for seniors in Goerlitz," said Manfred Laux, a retired banker who divides his time between Goerlitz and Frankfurt. "It's a beautiful city, like living in an art gallery. You can get everywhere by foot and rents are low."

Goerlitz managed to arrest a drop in population, which fell from a 72,000 in 1990 to 56,000. About 2,000 people were leaving each year in the 1990s. But last year Goerlitz's population grew for the first time -- by 300 -- thanks to senior newcomers.

"Seniors come alive in Goerlitz," said Lutz Penske, head of the city planning office that takes seniors' needs into account. "They feel welcome and well here, and we're happy to have them."

Not everyone is happy with the senior invasion. Maria Huber and her friend Franziska, both 18, said they have too much sway.

"There are too many retirees here now," Huber said. "Politicians do everything for the seniors but not enough for young people. Why do they get all the attention?"

Bernd Matthaeus, a 65-year-old retired carpenter standing nearby, said the answer to that was easy: "Because we vote."